Thoracic drainage catheter

ABSTRACT

A thoracic drainage catheter (tamponade proof) used in the thoracic surgery for permitting the evacuation of clots and secretions, provided at one extremity to be placed inside the patient&#39;&#39;s intrathoracic zone with lateral orifices and at the other with a tube connected to a vacuum apparatus.

United States Patent [191 Popa [ THORACIC DRAINAGE CATHETER [75] Inventor: loan Pop D. Popa, Tirgu Mures,

Romania [73] Assignee: Institutul Pentru Creatie Stiintifica Si Technica, Bucharest, Romania 22 Filed: Sept. 26, 1973 21 App1.No.:400,798

[30] Foreign Application Priority Data Sept, 29, 1972 Romania 72375 [52] US. Cl. 128/350 R, 128/246 [51] Int. Cl A61m 27/00 [58] Field of Search 128/246, 348, 349, 350,

[56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,510,212 9/1924 Du Bois 138/93 UX [451 Feb. 4, 1975 2,378,367 6/1945 2,898,917 8/1959 2,919,697 1/1960 2,930,378 3/1960 3,190,679 6/1965 3,392,722 7/1968 Jorgensen 128/1 3,395,710 8/1968 Stratton et a1. 128/350 R 3,564,103 2/1971 Brachschob 138/93 X Primary Examiner-Aldrich F. Medbery Attorney, Agent, or Firm1(ar1 F. Ross; Herbert Dubno [57] ABSTRACT A thoracic drainage catheter (tamponade proof) used in the thoracic surgery for permitting the evacuation of clots and secretions, provided at one extremity to be placed inside the patients intrathoracic zone with lateral orifices and at the other with a tube connected to a vacuum apparatus.

1 Claim, 1 Drawing Figure PATENTEB FEB M975 i mum Wag/zigza THORACIC DRAINAGE CATHETER The present invention refers to a thoracic drainage catheter (tamponade) used in thoracic surgery and especially in heart surgery postoperatively or after a traumatism in the thorax in order'to remove blood, secretions and air which accummulate in the thorax generating acute cardiorespiratory insufficiency and sometimes even death.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION To avoid this shortcoming surgical techniques use a thoracic drainage catheter consisting of simple aspira tion tubes having lateral orifices at the end which is introduced into the thoracic cavity.

The other end is connected to a vacuum apparatus meant to exhaust postoperatively formed liquids, including clots and tissue detritus.

The disadvantage of these catheters is that, after a period of time of 4 to 6 hours, and sometimes after 24 hours, their openings are obturated by the clots and the tissue detritus.

The tubes cannot be drained by evacuation and must be periodically and manually drawn out, a difficult manoeuvre which can be performed only with the exterior tubes, not with the intrathoracic inner tubes.

At the same time, such a handling can lead, by return of the partially exhausted secretions, to the risk of infection taking into account that the sterility decreases with the increase of the distance between the patient and the evacuation flask.

OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION One object of the invention is that of permitting the evacuation of clots which can obturate the catheter during the postoperative treatment, by flushing the catheter with heparine solution.

Another object of the invention is that of securing the continuous run of the catheter without any need of medical catheter extraction from the thoracic cavity while flushing.

The invention offers the following advantages:

it permits the execution of the detritus-clearing manouvre under sterile conditions;

it is of a simple construction and permits the visualization of the evacuation process of the clots all through the tube; and

the position of the catheter (being radioopaque) can be easily detected.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The thoracic drainage catheter is provided at one ex- I tremity with lateral orifices, the other extremity being sectional view of the thoracic drainage catheter, ac-- cording to the invention.

SPECIFIC DESCRIPTION According to the invention, the thoracic drainage catheter consists of a transparent elastic tube 1 having at the extremity lb to be placed inside the patients intrathoracic zone a plurality of orifices a. The other extremity 1a of the tube 1, without lateral orifices, is connected to a tube through which the secretions drain to the collection flask of the aspiration pump. At this other end, the tube 1 has at the place of connection with the vacuum apparatus, in order to shut that extremity, a protection tampon or plug 2.

A semi-rigid mandrel 3, which constitutes the manipulating handle of the catheter is introduced through a lateral orifice into the tube 1.

The radioopaque mandrel 3, placed in front of the lateral orifices inside the tube 1, is provided with a bulging balloonet 4, which acts as a piston and which is fastened at both extremities by tow hoses 5.

Atone extremity the handle will interlock to the sound by way of an extensible silicone rubber finger 3a acting as a guide for the return.

The main tube 1 has a semirigid rubber tube 6 extended with an elastic tube 7 having at each extremity a hose coupling 8, both tubes 6 and 7 serving to guide the mandrel 3. The mandrel 3 is connected at the extremity gliding through the tube 7 to a syringe (not represented in the figure) by way of an adaptor 9.

A rigid tube 10 provided with an adaptor 11 connects the catheter to a graduated cylinder (not represented in the FIGURE) for the purpose of liquid flushing.

According to the invention the catheter operates as follows:

The sterile aspiration tubes 1 (usually two or even three of them) are placed with the extremity provided with the lateral orifices inside the area which needs draining (inside the precardiac zone or inside the pleural cavity).

The tubes are fixid on skin by way of an elastic extensible link for cranial fastening.

The opposite extremities of the tubes are connected to the electrical vacuum pump for the drainage of the air-liquid postoperative excretions from the thorax.

With the object of periodically cleaning the catheter, the vacuum apparatus must be disconnected by applying a clamp on the exhaust tube 1 of the apparatus, the balloonet 4 on the mandrel must be inflated by pushing the syringe piston, connected at q and the mandrel must be pulled up to a position in the non-apertured zone; as a result of inflating and moving moving the balloonet 4, the tube area lb provided with lateral orifices, is isolated and, as a result of the upward piston-like movement of the balloonet 4 on the inner part of the tube 1, the clots in the lumen are drawn out towards the other extremity of the tube to be more easily discharged by the flushing action.

stopping the balloonet and the mandrel, they are fixed with a clamp and afterwards they are flushed with liquid (heparine solution) from the graduated-cylinder attached to 11. In order to be able tobalance of the thorax losses, drained into sucking flask, the ballon is deflated and returned to the bottom and the residual heparine is permitted to flow down to the orfice area.

The flushing of the tube with heparine solution helps the evacuation and especially the evacuation of the clots drawn by the mandrel; at the same time it maintains the hypo-coagulability of the blood which comes into touch with the system of aspiration tubes.

We claim:

1. A self cleaning catheter for thoracic drainage comprising:

a catheter tube body having an end provided with lateral orifices and adapted to be received in a thoracic cavity, and another end having means connectable to a suction source;

means for selectively closing the tube comprising a the mandrel in its inflated state.

I a: t I: 

1. A self cleaning catheter for thoracic drainage comprising: a catheter tube body having an end provided with lateral orifices and adapted to be received in a thoracic cavity, and another end having means connectable to a suction source; means for selectively closing the tube comprising a semi-rigid tubular mandrel extending laterally into said tube and having an inflatable end and sized to slide along the wall of said tube along said orifices; and a syringe connected to said tubular mandrel for distending and collapsing thE inflatable end thereof; a rigid tube extending laterally from said catheter tube and communicating with the interior thereof having means for being connected to a graduated cylinder for flushing the catheter tube with a heparine solution when the tube is closed by the end of the mandrel in its inflated state. 